For all the terms used on this site (and elsewhere)

Feel like a muppet when you hear nerd-speak? Or like one of those media
graduates who think they know how the Internet works because they attended two
morning sessions on Website 101? Your troubles are over. Browse through this
page and you'll know more about the Internet than their grandmothers ever did. Promise.

404: Not found. Lost. Disappeared down the pan. Clueless. Like making
a Usenet posting of rabbit recipes on rec.pets.rabbits. Like as in "George Bush
is a 404 dude". It's also the reply your website gives a browser or SEbot when
the page they are trying to reach is not available.

Abort: It's considered not politically correct to use the term anymore
so it has been replaced by Choice. As in choice() function.

Alta Vista: The search engine (view history) that was once the best in
the world but which suffered from a name that sounded very much like hasta la
vista, baby. Spookily prescient.

Ask Jeeves: These two words are what journalists start a sentence with
when they want to talk about Ask.com. As in "Ask Jeeves why it sacked 180
people", "Ask Jeeves when it will be profitable" etc. That these headlines have
ceased to be funny
doesn't stop them. So, we've got our own question for Jeeves
here.
(Ask got so tired of the jokes that they retired Jeeves and don't use him
anymore.)

Bot: The term bot is used to mean spider, the kind that SEs
send to trawl through your site. It's short for ROBOT which is itself short for
something else (which I can't remember right now). ROBOT is officially an
endangered species, if the word gets any shorter than bot it may become extinct
as it's not known to mate and breed successfully in the wild.

Content Website: A site put together by someone so full of himself
that he believes what he has to say is more important than the ads.

CPC: Cost Per Click. In Google Adwords a complex formula is used. A
function of the CTR relating to the keyword value of your chosen search
terms compared with CTRs of competing ads is plugged into a formula involving
other variables and constants including, we understand, the value of Pi. You are
then charged whatever the hell they want to charge you.

CPM: It used to stand for Cost Per Million impressions. But now stands
for Cost Per Thousand impressions, the M being the roman numeral for 1,000. It
was one of the concessions the European Union had to make to the Italians to
stop them gesticulating wildly at European Parliamentary sessions.

Cloud Computing: A way you can pay for the privilege of having
somebody else hold all your important information.

CTR: Cloned Textus Receptus. Also used to mean Click Through Ratio.

DIGG: A site originally designed to hold all of the Internet's
pointless chatter. It soon got overwhelmed and now pointless chatter can be
found almost everywhere. There was a
time
the Digg site even made sense. <sigh>

Microsoft: A medical condition that you can remedy with a little blue
tablet.

Netiquette: eating chocolates and she lost 10 lbs.

ODP: Open Directory Project. That place
where you submit a site and forget about it. (And they forget about it too)

Organic: Full of wholesome shit. Also referred to as "natural" as in:
I haven't SEO-ed my site, the rankings I have in the SERPS are
organic.

P2P:
Peer to Peer, Pornicator to Pornicator, Pickpocket to Pickpocket,
Pirate to Pirate. P2P is currently a four letter word. It means you're thieving
scum. You're a low down, cheap, lying, crooked, cheating git. Yes, You. And Him.
And Everybody. But that's only since
1998.

PPC: Porn, Pills, Casinos. Also used to mean Pay Per Click (as in
support a third world serial clicker).

PR: On the web it doesn't usually stand for Public Relations. History:
Used to be called Google Page Rank, then became a source of laughter as "Pigeon
Rank" and now a source of massive mirth as "Pretend Rank".

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation/Optimiser. The Americans seem to think it stands
for Search Engine Optimization...but they also think footballs aren't
round and that the Earth is flat. Ignore them. Search Engine Optimisation is the art of
pissing off the search engines by - ironically - making your site more SE
friendly.

SE: Search Engine. Or Search Engines. Yes, there are others.
Yahoo, MSN,
Teoma etc. have all, at various
times, been accused of being search engines.

SERP/S: Search Engine Results Page/s, the page of results you get when
you type a search term into a search engine. They're usually filled with SPAM
but you can ignore the ads and use the main (organic) listings before you
give up and get your Yellow Pages.

SPAM: Site Positioned Above Me. Well, not really. Strictly speaking
SPAM is UCE. Yes, just that, unwanted email. But it's used to mean a
variety of unwanted things. I've even got a SPAM teenager daughter. Usage:
Spamming blogs and guestbooks with links to your spammy site may get your spammy
ass into spammy SERPS.

TLD: A misspelling of Tender Loving Care. Also, Top Level Domain, like
the "com" in Google.com. Sun Microsystems famously put the dot in dot com. Till
then confused people had enormous difficulty remembering nonsense URLs like
googlecom. The moral here is that URLs should be memorable. Like Powergen's
alleged
Italian site, powergenitalia. And, who recalls (whore calls)
whore presents.com? Or the land of dicks?

Tucows: The answer to how many cows does it take to change a lightbulb.
Someone made a whole site out of this but
managed to leave out
every single
two cow joke. Now what's the chance of that?

Twisted pair: George Bush and Tony Blair.

Twitter: This so called micro-blogging site is widely accepted as the
best way to keep up-to-date with what everyone is having for lunch.

Twitter: The noise made by small birds and other creatures with
similar sized brains.

UCE: Unwanted Commercial Email. Also called SPAM. But now
generously extended to all unwanted email ranging from the ones informing you
that you should repent, the Lord is coming; to those offering you encouragement
to increase the size of your member. Money saving tip: There's no point in
paying for the latter if the former is true.

Vista: Viruses, Intruders, Spyware, Trojans and Adware.

Web 2.0: A lame term invented to promote Bubble 2.0 but wisely sussed
by Tony Blair who discovered it's really all about a spider in his guitar
hollow.

Webmaster Guidelines: Like
this Google
example. It's the restrictions SEs impose on what you can do with
your own site. Is it a surprise that the anagram of Webmaster Guidelines is...
De smug Brin is a wet eel?

WHOIS: A word that prefixes "your daddy" to suggest I had
something to do with your mummy.

Wikileaks: The truth according to those who most want to keep quiet
about it.*

Wikipedia: The truth according to those who shout the loudest.*

Wikipedia: The most authoritative definition site on the internet ...
or it was till I edited the relevant section to say
this page
is the new authority.

Wikipedia: The truth according to those who shout the loudest.

WTF: The famous words uttered by Saddam Hussien one morning when he
opened a manhole cover...

Didn't find what you were looking for? Still feeling like a muppet? Try our
other
webmaster glossary or scroll
back to the definition of Glossary above and you'll find links to other
glossaries that probably cover the obscure term you seem determined to
understand.

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